I was recently a guest on The Blerg podcast. It’s a podcast that focuses on the various technologies in the Android ecosystem, featuring famed developer of Action Launcher, +Chris Lacy.During our chat, we talked all about Android TV, Google’s solution for streaming devices in your home. We also talked a bit about what we would love to see in the way of additions to Android TV in the future. I spent several years developing for Google TV and Android TV, it was certainly a unique experience from typical Android application development. At any rate, I wanted to share some of the highlights of our chat with you.

Highlights

[02:10]: We briefly mention some of the challenges developing for the older Google TV devices.[05:00]: Discussing the differences between the Google TV remote and the Nexus Player remote.[08:35]: Chris talks about his experience with the Sony TV.[13:00]: My main use case for the Nexus Player is a Chromecast YouTube Party.[15:25]: We talk about how much I loved the Chrome Browser on the old Google TV devices.[17:15]: Chris starts discussing the “Recommendations” feature of the Android TV.[19:00]: We talk about the things we like/dislike about the Android TV Launcher.[24:50]: I talk a bit about Apple TV and the look-and-feel of the applications.[29:40]: Learned about a new game that I can play on Android TV, Crossy Road.[31:10]: Another feature we’d love, suggested/new apps to aid in discoverability.[33:20]: Shout out to my favorite show, Murder She Wrote, which it watch endlessly on Netflix.[37:10]: Our take on apps that are installed by default, like Netflix.[39:10]: I talk about developing for Android TV, huge improvement over Google TV.[41:10]: The one thing I’d love to see with Android TV is having it integrated with my cable provider.Hope you enjoyed the episode!

I was recently a guest on one of my favorite podcasts, Fragmented. It’s a podcast that focuses on tips and tricks for improving the Android Development experience. We talked all about Gradle, the build system that is used for running, testing, and packaging Android applications. I wanted to share some of the highlights.

Highlights

[02:31]: Kaushik attempts to discover if my time at The Washington Post was as exciting as the Spotlight movie.[04:35]: Talking about my new work at Off Grid Electric.[06:50]: We starting digging into some of the benefits of the Gradle build system.[09:15]: We discuss build flavors and how they allow you to have different variations of your application.[10:20]: Donn asks a question many have wondered: Why do we have some many .gradle files when we start a new Android application?[12:22]: We discuss how the settings.gradle file is used.[13:35]: How does the Gradle plugin structure benefit Android developers.[16:40]: Donn introduces us to Gradle tasks. Then we talk about how they’re connected to plugins.[24:10]: We do a quick overview of Creating a Custom Gradle Plugin. [31:00]: We start talking about improving the Gradle build times. Then as an extra bonus, Chiu-Ki Chan, fellow Android GDE, made an awesome Sketchnote of the entire episode.

So listening to podcasts used to be the “thing”, then it wasn’t the “thing” anymore, and now it’s back to being the “thing” to do. So with that in mind I thought I’d share some of my favorite podcasts for Android developers.

Fragmented

So Fragmented is a podcast for Android Developers that focuses on providing information about the trends in Android Development and the best tools available to produce quality applications. What I like about this podcast is that the hosts are actual developers responsible for building and maintaining apps that are in the wild, so it lends credibility to the advice that they provide.

Android Developers Backstage

Android Developers Backstage is also focused on Android as the name implies, however it is hosted by two Google employees. So it allows you to hear the motivation behind some of the platform decisions and get a better understanding of how Google intended for certain APIs and tools to be used by developers.

Java Posse

Finally, I leave you with the Java Posse podcast. I only just discovered this one and unfortunately they are no longer making any new episodes. However, the archives are still available and they are full of great content for Java developers. Each and every episode that I’ve heard so far has left me with at least one idea that I can use to continue growing as a Java developer.